by Piper Lennox
Luka stares at the Call Ended screen, clicks the phone off, and looks at me.
“I’m fine.” My forced-smile energy is drained. Which sucks, because I need it now more than ever. “I’m so happy for her. For both of them.”
“Yeah.” He watches me fan my eyes. “They’re good together.”
We guide the Segways onto the road and start back for the resort. I pretend to have trouble with mine so I can lag behind. In a cruel twist, he chooses to hang back and match my pace.
“You, uh…you got kind of emotional, back there.” The pity in his voice is agonizing.
“I told you—happy tears.”
“Didn’t look like it.”
The Segway beeps, saving me from having to answer. He reads my screen, then his.
“Batteries are getting low. I thought we’d have more time than that.”
I study the blinking icon. “What if they run out before we make it back?”
“We’ll stash them somewhere and come get them with a truck. Good to know the distance range for when I set up the route, though.” He pauses. “Thanks for coming with me. It was a lot more fun than if I’d brought someone from work.”
“You’re welcome. And...thanks for inviting me.” Up ahead, where the trees gap, I think I hear the ocean. It calms me down, in that way the beach always does. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised you did, though.”
“Why?”
“Because.” I shrug; he should know this. “It’s not like we can sleep together anymore. The whole friends-with-benefits thing is over.”
“Do you really think that’s all I care about?”
My instinctive answer is yes, but I know not to say it. “Not the only thing,” I say, after a minute, “but maybe the main thing.”
“It’s not even the main thing, Tanya. The sex was great, yeah, but…I like hanging out with you. Seeing you is the only….”
“The only what?”
When I look over, I think for sure it’s the sunset, just beginning in the distance, that’s turning his face such a rosy color. Seeing Luka blush is about as common as an eclipse.
“It’s the only thing,” he says, “that I really look forward to, anymore. Every time you leave? This little countdown clock in my head starts going again.” His shoulders shift with the admission. “Just because we don’t have the benefits part anymore doesn’t mean we’ve got to ditch the friends part too, does it?”
Hearing him call us friends, even though it’s a word I probably would have used to describe our relationship myself, if pressed, makes me smile. Suddenly, it’s easier to fight the last of my tears.
“You were right.” The Segway beeps again; it’s dropped from twenty to fifteen percent, without warning. His beeps a few seconds later.
“Yeah, no way we’ll make it back on what we’ve got left.”
“Not about the Segways. About me.” The confession skates through my teeth like splinters of glass: necessary to get out, but painful as hell. “I told Oscar yes for the wrong reasons.”
“For money,” he clarifies.
“Stability, but yes.”
“You know,” he says, that smartass smirk of his emerging to rile and relax me, all at once, “if you were going to marry anyone for money...I’m wondering why you wouldn’t just ask me.”
I stare at him.
Then, I burst out laughing.
His eyebrows raise. “Ouch. Point taken.”
“What, do you want to marry me?”
“Beautiful proposal.” He fans his face in what, I have to admit, is a flawless imitation of me. “You make it hard for a girl to say no.”
“You don’t believe in marriage. You’re all about the corporate life. I’ve heard your five-year plan, Luka: no distractions, no letting off the gas, no stopping. Not until you’ve gotten that place basically running on its own.”
“When did I say that?”
“The first Christmas I was here. You told me about your parents being high school sweethearts, and—”
“Oh,” he interrupts, nodding, “right, about how everyone in Kona falls in love so young, gets married, pops out some kids, and that I don’t want to put myself in a rut yet. Not until I’ve gotten to a place I’d be happy to dig one. I remember now.”
“Actually,” I correct slowly, as we crest the hill and the Segways dribble forward, “you told me you figured, since your parents found their soulmates so young, you didn’t think you could.”
Now that he’s scratching his chin and blushing again, I feel less self-conscious about my tears, and less bothered by his teasing. He knows the deal: embarrass me, and I’ll do it right back.
I go on. “I think your exact phrasing was, ‘What are the odds of lightning striking twice in one family?’”
He coughs into his elbow, pretending to study the battery screen. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d say.”
“Exactly. That’s why I remembered it.” As we come to the top of the hill, I angle my Segway and bump him. “Anyway, back on-topic: you were asking why I wouldn’t marry you?”
“No, I was just saying...if you’re looking for a guy with money, why would you start dating somebody new, instead of...” He falters, eyes skimming the asphalt in front of us. “...looking at the options you’ve already got.”
“And again, I’m going to ask—do you want to marry me?”
He pauses. It’s barely a millisecond, but reverberates between us like plates shifting underneath the ground.
“No,” he says.
“Then there’s your answer.” I barely glance at my screen as the battery indicator beeps again. “Oscar was the first guy to ask. Hell, he was the first I kept around long enough to even give him the chance to ask.” I’m glad the Segway is still running, if only because gripping the handlebar tighter keeps me from fidgeting. “When Kai told us he was going to propose, it...kind of got to me. Not like I’m not happy for them, because I am. Like, please don’t think I’m just some jealous, petty—”
“I know you aren’t.”
I look at him. He looks back, serious. Patient.
“It just got me thinking,” I continue, “about how I never had any stability growing up, and how it’d be really, really....” I pause and draw in a breath, releasing it as I speak. “...really nice, to finally have that.”
“By marrying a guy for money.”
“In a totally fucked-up way, yes. That’s what I thought. But it’s not just money. He’s got a really secure job, he’s sweet, he’s low-drama...no drama, actually. He’s...”
“Safe,” he finishes. I must be imagining the shroud around that one word, the world of emotion in the way he pulls his lip through his teeth.
“Yeah.” I lean back as the ground slopes down again, trying to tame my speed. It works, until I hit a bump and stumble off. Luka catches my elbow and loops around, preventing the machine—and me—from clattering down the hill.
“Thanks,” I breathe, heart hammering. When I regain my balance, I add, “It sounds stupid, but I kept thinking about arranged marriages. A lot of women in those say they learned to love the guy, as time went on.”
“Yeah, but see, I don’t think you can ‘learn’ to love someone, if you don’t at least have that spark. Do you have that with him? Even a little?”
I chuckle, at the exact moment the Segway lets out a series of beeps and comes to a stop. My foot braces against the road.
“Why’s that funny?”
“Come on, Luka. You and I both know the spark is overrated. It goes away.”
“Ours hasn’t.”
He says this so casually, while he gets off his machine and lifts mine with both hands, that I don’t even realize I should help. I watch him carry the Segway to the corner.
“Do me a favor,” he calls. “Ride mine over here. Might as well stash both at my place.”
We round the bend. His parents’ house unfolds at the bottom of the driveway like a pop-up book. “We don’t see each other every d
ay,” I counter. “If we did, the spark would definitely go away, at some point.”
“Of course it would.” He sets my Segway behind a tree. I park his next to it, and we start for the resort on foot. “But I think what makes a relationship work is that, while the spark is fading, you’re nourishing something else. And that’s what turns into love—the thing you’re left with for...weeks, months, years. Decades.” The sunset catches his eyes through the trees. “However long it lasts.”
This is more than I’ve ever heard—or expected—from Luka on the subject of love, but I put a pin in it. I’ve been searching for a way to tell him this ever since he scared me at the bar.
A delicate, drawn-out delivery? I’m not sure I’m capable of it, right now. But something about just blurting it out, in a tumbling fervor, seems fitting. It is us, after all. The king and queen of Fast and To the Point.
When he finally looks at me, I close my eyes, wince, and say it.
“I’m calling off the engagement.”
Twelve
Luka
“Another late night?”
Dad pours himself the last of my coffee and starts a new pot. The gurgle of water reminds me I still haven’t showered, which was my main reason for coming home instead of pulling this all-nighter in my office. Now it’s five a.m., and I have to be back at the office by seven.
“Yep. Almost done with the Kona Seg route.” I flip my pen back and forth, watching him. “I got a text from Parker around dinnertime saying there’s been some social media campaign going on about Port: Aruba.”
“I saw that. They’ve gotten over forty-thousand signatures on that petition, already. I don’t see Paradise fighting to keep it open when protest is so strong.”
“Yeah. Me neither.” I shake some antacids from the economy-sized jug on the table and chew, then follow it up with the OTC meds Hannah Harlowe recommended. I’m not actually sure if I’m supposed to take both at the same time, but I’ll do just about anything to stop the burn in my throat that’s been plaguing me since yesterday.
“I just don’t get you,” Tanya remarked, when we got back to the resort. We strolled to the lazy river and sat on the edge. I wasn’t sure why this was where we always ended up, like the crowded kitchen of a house party. But, somehow, we did.
“‘Get’ me?”
“You research the hell out of every little thing. Remember last time I was here, when I had that abrasion on my eye? You looked up all the facts and complications about it you could, just to scare me into going to an eye doctor.”
“You could’ve gone blind.”
“My point is, you’re all about facts and statistics, ‘arming yourself with knowledge’ or whatever—except when it comes to yourself.” She watched me pop another duo of antacids into my mouth. I was nearing the end of the roll she’d given me. “It’s the epitome of denial.”
I’d thought of a thousand snappy comebacks, but didn’t say them. My brain was caught in the net of what she’d said down the road—she was calling off the engagement. I’d played it cool, telling her I thought it was best for both of them, she would just hurt him more later, at least now she knew she really did want marriage, someday: a string of ultra-mature pearls of wisdom.
Inside, I was celebrating. And gloating.
She could say whatever she wanted, but I knew her calling it off was because of me. At least partially.
“So this Aruba thing,” Dad says, draping his arms on the table. “You worried that would happen here?”
“No.” I push back my hair, leaving my hand there, and sigh. I can feel my pulse in my temple. “That’s the entire point of the affiliate deals. Winning over locals. Aruba never adopted the program.”
“I’d, uh...I’d still watch it all pretty closely, if I were you.”
“We’re Port’s biggest earner, Dad. We’ll be fine.” I chew up another antacid and, without thinking, wash it down with coffee.
“Your mom and I saw Rochelle yesterday.”
I nod. “Hannah told me she thinks it really helped her.”
He gives me a flat look. “Let me guess: you went to see the Harlowes about that stomach pain, instead of a proper doctor.”
“Are you questioning the Harlowes’ medical expertise?”
“Luka.” He sets his jaw. I shut up. “I had an ulcer when I wasn’t much older than you, the year we opened the hotel. It’s one of those things that, yes, can be really minor, easy to treat—but if you ignore it, it can and will get worse.”
“I’m going to a doctor soon,” I promise, the same way I spit it at Tanya when we stood by a back entrance of the resort, prolonging our goodbye. “And yes, a human doctor. Just not right this minute. Besides, it’s only acting up because of stress.”
“It’s more than stress,” he says, in a tone like I should know what he means. So when I stare at him, tapping my pen impatiently, he shrugs. “You aren’t happy.”
“What?” I motion to the spread of papers, graphs, and memos. “This is my thing. I’m in my element.”
“So was I.”
For a second, I can’t help myself: I look him up and down. He looks so different—so much healthier—than he did two years ago, right after his stroke. Hell, even before his stroke.
“Your mom and Kai tried telling me the same thing,” he goes on, picking up one of my blueprints for my house. “I wouldn’t listen. So I understand where you’re coming from, believe me. People like us...it’s hard to take our eyes off the goalposts.”
Down the hall, the alarm clock sounds. We listen to the floorboards creak as Mom gets up and silences it, ready to rise with the sun. It’s not long before her morning playlist strains through the cracks around the door, and then, as always, she’s singing along.
I wait for the rest. Dad doesn’t give these little speeches often, so when he does, you take notice.
“You remember when you boys made that lemonade stand on the property?” he asks.
My smile surprises me. “Yeah, yeah...we had the card table, right? And Noe painted that big sign on the back of that map from his room. He got the shit beat out of himself for it, too.”
Dad laughs with me. “Yeah, he did. And you three served lemonade to guests all morning long during check-ins, when there was a big rush, all this excitement—but when it died down, Noe and Kai ran off with their friends. You remember what you did?”
I shake my head. I can see the lemonade stand like a Polaroid, but can’t place myself, or my brothers, behind it.
“You sat and counted the money twice,” he says, “before deciding you wanted more. So you got up, poured a little lemonade into each cup, and started handing out free samples so guests would come back and buy seconds.”
I laugh again. I may not remember it, but it definitely sounds right.
“I knew then you were a lot like me. You always wanted to see what you could do next. And it wasn’t about the money—you just had to know how much further you could take things. How far you could push your luck.” Now, his expression gets stern. “Which was also the case when you were raising hell in school.”
This time, my laugh puts out the fire in my stomach. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.
“You’ve come really far, channeling that curiosity and drive into something productive,” he goes on, “but life can’t be all about work.”
“Dad, it’s not like that. Yeah, I’ve been working a lot lately, and...and okay, the business hasn’t really felt ‘fun’ for...I don’t know, a year, but that’s just how things are. Good years and bad years. Sometimes you’re not going to be happy, but you keep working, anyway.” My gaze trips to the rest of the blueprints, underneath Noe’s old textbooks.
Dad looks, too. “What happens if you don’t get the lot?”
“There’s no way I won’t get it. I’ve been saving to build my house for two years straight. If I get outbid, it’ll be by Bill Gates himself.”
“Listen to what I’m asking you. What if you don’t get it—or even if you do—
and you’re still not happy?”
“Where are you getting this idea I’m not happy? Just because you weren’t?” For once, I’m glad my mom belts Heart and Sting and Jovi at ungodly hours. If she could hear any of this, she’d be interfering in a flash.
“Look,” I say, quieter, “maybe you just weren’t meant for a business as big as Port. That’s okay. But I am. Yes, it has its bad days, and stress, but—”
“You’re only thinking about what this job can give you.”
His interruption is like a pinball, shattering my trajectory. I close my mouth mid-sentence.
“You have to think about,” he continues, “what it takes from you, too.”
I nod, unable to disagree. The business takes a hell of a lot from me. But it gives a hell of a lot back, too. I’d be an idiot to slow down now.
He pushes out from the table like he’s going to stand, but stops. His eyes are on the blueprints again.
“I wouldn’t buy Rochelle’s house, if I were you. Something about the situation...it just isn’t right.”
The sides of my skull are closing in around my brain. I feel exhausted and amped up, all at once. “Well…good thing you aren’t me.”
I don’t have to look at Dad’s face—and I don’t dare—to see the fury. I’ve always been the smartass, and if this were five, ten years ago, he’d beat the smart right out of me.
“I also wouldn’t keep up the expansion projects. It doesn’t matter how many affiliates you sign, how many businesses you may or may not help out. People around here are never going to stop hating Paradise Port. They just won’t.” He scuffs the floor with his slippers, threadbare and ringed black at the toes, as he leans back in the chair with his arms folded. “I wish I’d listened when everyone was telling me not to sign with them.”
“What happened to ‘My business is my business, screw what everyone else thinks,’ huh?”
“It’s more than people not liking the franchise. It’s that balance, actually getting to enjoy life while you work. I lost a lot, signing with them.” He pauses, his eyes shifting from mine. “They’re not looking out for anyone but themselves.”
